Category Archives: disease

At seventeen he told me that he was never going to have children. I asked him why.

“I can’t do what you do,” he said.

Of course I know enough about psychological signs to know that he was telling me he intended to dodge the realities of life. I didn’t see what I could do about it at that time.

When he was about twenty, he was lethargic and sedentary. If I’d seen any other boy living in such a pattern, I’d have immediately guessed that he was a drug addict.

I was living in a distant city when my son called asking for money. I told him to go to my closest friend for it, and I’d pay my friend back. My friend, who is the founding president of his company, had a visitor in his office when my son was invited in to get the money.

As soon as the boy left with the money, the visitor commented, “The kid’s a junkie, eh.” It seems the visitor was a recovered heroin addict, and he recognized the signs. My friend was stunned, because he was in denial just as I was. As I said, if I’d seen any other young man with my son’s behavior, I would have known at once that he was an addict. But, because it was my own son, it didn’t occur to me, nor to my closest friend.

I warn you to avoid denial if you can. To subconsciously overlook something obvious is to succumb to denial. Denial can cause one to miss facts like your roommate is stealing your cosmetics; or the girl just doesn’t really like you. If you’re alert to denial, you might save yourself some unpleasant surprises.

Other people knew my son was a heroin addict. His mother and sister knew, and feared to tell me. I imagine the discomfort my friend suffered, when he knew he was going to tell me. That’s how I know he’s a true friend. He lives by a strong moral code, and recognizes that right and wrong are separate entities from legal and illegal.

Of course, the money I had given my son from time to time was spent on heroin. A star sapphire ring, a family heirloom that I passed on to him, went to the drug dealer I now realize. Similarly, a very elaborate breathing system I bought to protect him as he was working with fiberglass in the hulls of large sailing yachts under construction. I suppose he never used it, but traded it for heroin.

Although we might mourn the death of a murder victim, the victim’s troubles ended at the moment of death. The loss, however, doesn’t end for loved ones. The ramifications can be enormous. Imagine what the murdered person might have been meant to do in the hours and days that followed the abrupt halt. Everything else continues, although adapting to the altered circumstances. Just yesterday facebook sent me a heads up that an old friend has a birthday coming up this month. Unfortunately, I know that she had cancer and passed away a few months ago.

What if she had been murdered? How different would be the thoughts and the mourning? Nadine had never told me of her cancer, but I learned of it from a mutual acquaintance. Had it been murder, I would be tortured by thoughts of what might have happened to her before death liberated her. Her sisters, brother and mother would suffer every day for the rest of their lives. Nadine’s absence from family events and gatherings would insert a dark presence in her stead.

Nadine tailored her exit from life with the wisdom and taste that had always marked her professional performance. She returned to the place where she’d been born, Jamaica, and enjoyed the sand at her feet and the ocean on her body until her death.

The unending burden on the ‘survivors’ carries on for up to three generations. The murder of one’s kin becomes a family legend, retold proudly for its colour and intrigue.

Murder never ends because the shock and loss have a relentless impact on those who cared about the victim. Not just loved ones, but business associates, employers and employees, doctors and dentists and insurance executives all are impacted atypically.

Are you one of them? The lovely women whose offices are in large downtown buildings? Are you one of the professionals that we see standing outside building entrances? Some of you cower in alcoves to escape the wind while you desperately suck in nicotine smoke. You know it’s killing you, you know it makes you smell, and it makes a fool of you as you stand out in the cold, feeding your addiction.

I’ll never forget the day I quit. I was behind the wheel of my car, stopped at a traffic light. On the corner, also waiting for the green light was a stunning woman. She was tall, lean, with excellent posture and a perfectly tailored business suit. Suddenly she lifted a cigarette I hadn’t seen to her lips.

In seconds, she became less attractive. As she let the two streams of smoke glide from her nostrils, she began nervously flicking, flicking, flicking non-existent ashes from her cigarette. At that moment she became completely unattractive to me.

The light turned green and I drove off. At that moment, the announcer on the car radio said, “It’s national quit smoking month, folks”. I thought that I must also look like a loser fool when I smoke. The thought punished me. When I got to my destination, I opened my briefcase, extracted the half-pack of Camel filters, crumpled it into dust and discarded it in a garbage bin.

I’ve not tasted tobacco in any form since that day almost thirty years ago.

I really didn’t expect anything special to happen; I just wanted to see Julia again. I had a delightful affair with her several years before, and we were always as much friends as lovers. She had a beautiful face. I find that faces almost always fit into a ‘type’. Not that they might look almost exactly like the celebrity, but would be that type. Julia was, believe it or not, an Elisabeth Taylor type, and really remarkably similar in nose, mouth, face shape and dark hair.

Whenever a single mom is saddled with a special needs child my heart breaks for that mom. They are trapped in a way of life that is irrevocable. Julia’s story is one that is, unfortunately, too often repeated. She grew up in a small city where social contacts are limited by fewer opportunities because of fewer people. Often, the prettiest girl in town is from a working class family. Julia’s father worked at the Ford plant and Julia was the prettiest girl in town.

Almost as if it was decreed by an irresistible force, the boy from the richest family in town wanted the prettiest girl in town all to himself. He married Julia, to the great disappointment and disapproval of his parents. Some said he did it just to irritate his parents, but I don’t believe that. Julia was not only pretty; she was an intelligent, educated professional woman with a responsible position in a law enforcement department. That rich boy might not have been able to feel a deep love for anyone but himself because of his background, but he certainly could lust after Julia.

Julia became pregnant and the marriage was all it was ever going to be: a standoff between two people, too young and not really compatible. They were together when the baby was born. The infant should have aborted naturally because she was riddled with defects. The child very soon had to be raised in a special hospital that was capable of the trying task. Her mind was not very capable. She was blind as well and generally capable of very little. In short order, the rich boy husband and father was out of there like a shot.

About a year after that, I met her and we had a wonderful affair. I was married and had two children so many people would consider me a louse. I loved my wife and desired her every day… and every day she rejected me, saying “That’s all you ever think about.”

Well yes, I was a turned on kind of guy. And I was really in love with my wife and found her very desirable. She was slender and pretty and typical of her type. Just for the record, I was not a dog myself as I learned from several women other than my wife. For no apparent reason, she decided making love was not for her.

I knew people who were friendly with Julia, and from time to time I’d hear about how she was doing. I’d learned that she’d married again, to a younger man and again became pregnant. The child was happy and healthy this time. However, it seems the pregnancy triggered dormant Multiple Sclerosis within her. The young husband took off.

I got her phone number from one of her friends and called her for a lunch date. The next day I picked her up at her small flat in an old house and took her to a sidewalk café on a small street of high fashion shops and restaurants. I knew she needed canes to walk, so I chose a place where she could get out of the car and go straight into the restaurant terrace and sit at an umbrella table. We ordered lunch and chatted.

“Why did you always welcome me into your apartment whenever I showed up at your door?” I said. “I was a married man, yet I could show up at your place at eight in the morning or three in the morning and you welcomed me with a pretty smile.” She showed that pretty smile again, across the small table at me. It was a hot July day with just enough breeze to make it comfortable in the shade of the umbrella.

“You were safe,” she said. “You were married, so there wouldn’t be any commitment problems for me. I was out of a really painful marriage and I had no desire to get into another one at that time. And you were very good looking.”

Our meals were brought to the table and we continued to chat over lunch.

“You still do it,” she said with a broad smile on her lovely face.

“I still do what?”

“You still look directly into my eyes while we talk,” said Julia. “I loved that about you.”

“Don’t all men do that?” I said.

“You’d be surprised how unique it is,” she said. “You’re a special man.”

I drove her home. The Georgian style red brick house was three storey’s high on a beautiful old street of fine old homes and the shade of huge maple trees. She invited me in for coffee and I accepted.

In her flat the air was cool after the blazing hot summer sun. The heavy curtains on her first floor windows were drawn. The rooms were in dim light that spilled through the edges of the curtains. Julia put her canes aside and made her way toward her kitchen with careful steps while she used the wall for stability.

I went to her and put my arms around her and held her close. She clung to me with desperation that told me how lonely she’d been. Her mother had sold a property she’d inherited and moved to Jamaica. Friends abandoned her one by one as her illness took over her.

I found fasteners for each of her garments and made her naked while we held each other. I lay her back on her bed.

“You have to move my legs,” she said. I lifted her legs onto the bed.

“Does it hurt?” I said.

“No, it doesn’t hurt,” she said. I felt a tone of impatience in her voice. I undressed and lay on my stomach at the foot of her bed and slithered up between her legs. I slid my arms under her legs and lifted them onto my back. She needed me to make love with her. Her vagina was wet and fragrant. Her clitoris reached up to meet my mouth and I caressed her in that way and was rewarded with her sweet nectar.

I kept her legs over my shoulders when I raised myself up over her.

“Am I hurting you?” I said.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said. “There’s no pain.” I heard in her voice a fear that I might not continue, afraid of doing harm.

I made love with her. It was good to be with her again. She was a very good person. Pretty, light hearted and witty. I often wondered how she could be so positive after all she’d been through. She had a disabled first child and abandonment by her husband. Then she had a healthy child that launched her MS followed by abandonment of her second husband. She had a good, close relationship with her mother. She was to join her mother in Jamaica until the illness struck her and changed her life again.

“You’re even better now than you were in the old times,” she said.

“We live and learn,” I said.

We had our coffee after we’d bathed together. At last I had to leave, and we both knew that we’d not see each other again.

“Thanks for lunch,” she said, “and especially the take-home dessert.”

We laughed together and wished each other good luck. We kissed and I departed. That was many years ago and I’ve since learned Julia passed away and her child is being raised by Julia’s mother in Jamaica.